


Everyone Knows

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:18:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort-of sequel to 'Five Times No One Noticed and One Time Someone Did'. One by one Aaron and Robert's affair becomes known to the people in Emmerdale village and the two of them learn to cope with the various reactions and how their relationship develops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Knows

**Author's Note:**

> Follows on directly from: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3970999 (you don't have to have read it but it probably helps!).
> 
> Character POV change usually denoted by an asterisk.

**Victoria**

 

Victoria holds up one hand, pristine cheese grater in another. She’s closing her eyes, breathing in and trying to find space to think.  "Don't go anywhere," she says to Robert. "Just give me five minutes."

He's ignoring her, half following her out the room until she turns on her heel and takes one calm breath before the words come flooding out. "I have to give this to Marlon before he comes and finds me and asks me why I'm here talking to you instead of working. And I can't exactly tell him why, can I? Just five minutes Rob!"

A part of her expects him to have bolted by the time she returns but at the same time she knows that he'll want to explain or to lie his way out of it. That's what he does best, even to those he loves. Before she gets to the kitchen she spots Aaron at the bar, hands clasped and face twitching with nerves and all her instincts tell her to talk to him. But he's third on her list of priorities now so when she finally reaches the kitchen the first thing she does is start unlacing her apron. She has to get back to Robert.

Marlon is guppy mouthed as she hands over the grater.

"Family emergency," she says. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up with an extra shift another day."

"It's flaming lunchtime, Victoria!" she hears him shout as she leaves, imagining the veins in his neck bursting at the surface.

Robert isn't gone when she gets back. He's sat at the table, head stooped and a hand in his hair. He looks like a boy waiting for the headteacher, waiting to confess to his crimes. When she shuts the door behind her he stands up as if he has some big speech prepared but she tells him to sit and puts on the kettle and he actually listens. She has a million questions flashing through her head and spawning another ten but for those first moments neither of them say a word until she's sat opposite him with two mugs of tea.

He's jittery, stumbling over words he's been rehearsing in the silence. "Before you say whatever it is you're going to say, what you heard doesn't change anything. I'm still married to Chrissie. I love Chrissie."

"And Aaron?" She wants to shake him, ask him how he could be as stupid as to cheat when all he's ever done is cause other people heartache by doing the same. But when she looks at him, he looks exposed - caught in a trap - and then she can't berate him at all.

He wants to deny it again, she can see it in the way he avoids her gaze, wanting to fall back on the security of mocking it, of scoffing at the suggestion. But he's already admitted to it. "I told you, it changes nothing. He knows the score."

"So you don't actually feel anything for him, then? If this is how you're treating him." She tries stripping her voice of the accusation but she still hears it biting away at him. He's so quick with the words that he thinks people want to hear, so fast to smooth things over whether he means it or not. Aaron's her friend - fragile, even if he does muddle through. He's been through too much to be pulled into Robert's games.

Robert winds back, twisting away from her criticism. "No. It's not like that." He grimaces and she sees his eyes refocus and dot around from frame to frame of the photographs Diane keeps. "I do...I do care about him. More than that. It started out as just...I don't know. Fun. It was a distraction. I liked the sneaking around, the excitement. I'm not proud of it, Vic. But it's the truth. It's what I do."

"Why did you have to drag Aaron into that? Don't you think he's been through enough?"

"I didn't set out to hurt him," Robert says, laying his hands out on the table as if he's drawing out a timeline of events. "I thought we both wanted the same thing. It was just sex. We wanted each other. Just physical. No feelings. That's all it was at that start."

It's not the first time she's been privy- too close - to Robert's sex life but she avoids his gaze, still trying to get to grips with the idea of Robert with Aaron. "Is he the first bloke you've...?"

He looks directly at her and then folds his arms across his chest. "Look, you can save your ‘out and proud’ talk, okay? I'm not Finn. I’m not anything like that so you can drop it, alright?"

"I was only asking," she says. "You've never mentioned it before."

"Well I'm not one to go plastering my one night stands all over Facebook," he says. His arms come loose and he's defensive now, less uptight. "It's never meant anything with other men. It's no big deal, alright?"

"Okay," she says, filling the silence with a sip of her drink and waiting for him to explain himself.

"That's all it was with Aaron. A one off. Things just...escalated." He runs his fingers over the handle of the mug.

"Fine, it’s easy then. Finish with him. It's got to be better than just stringing him along."

His leg springs up and down, his eyes closing like he's riding through uncomfortable thoughts. He laughs at himself, a self-pitying laugh. "I don't want to."

Victoria places down her mug, leaning into him. She makes her words slow and loaded. "Then tell Chrissie."

"No. No. It's not happening."

"You can't just keep flitting back and forth between them! One day you're going to have to make up your mind, Rob." She moves forward in her seat, trying to attract his attention by placing her hand on his even though with his teeth gritted and eyes glazed, he's in another world. A world where his two lives can coexist without causing anyone pain. "You have to choose otherwise you're going to end up with no one."

"Chrissie's my life," he says, looking like a lost, lonely boy.

"There's your answer then." Victoria squeezes his hand, pressing her lips together in a supportive smile.

Robert stares at her hand and his path to meet her eyes is gradual, laboured. “It’s not.” His face crumples, looking in the direction of where she walked in to find him and Aaron sitting. "I can't give him up."

 

**Diane**

 

Robert kisses Diane on the cheek and hands her the fancy gift-boxed vouchers for a spa day at a local manor hotel. It’s generic enough that it didn’t require much thinking and expensive enough to show he cares. It was mainly Chrissie’s doing but he takes the credit for it anyway.

“Happy Birthday,” he says, “Chrissie sends her love. She’s at a work thing.” He’s vague about it mainly because he isn’t even sure of the ins and outs himself. He had hoped to spend the evening with Aaron, knowing she was away, but then Victoria had texted reminding him of Diane’s birthday tea. Vic was catering - despite Robert offering to take them all out for a meal - because Diane had insisted she wanted no fuss. There was no excuse big enough to explain both his and Aaron’s absences from her birthday and he knew Chas would have plenty to say about it. He’d already steeled himself in anticipation of her barbed, double entendre comments, but after a quick scan of the room on arrival he noticed there was no sight of her. Or Aaron.

Diane opens her vouchers with delight and Andy hands him a beer as Diane’s distracted by Bernice’s arrival.

“Just family tonight, is it?” Robert asks Andy.

“Chas and Aaron have just gone to pick up the cake.”

“Right,” he says, growing twitchier at the prospect of spending the evening with Chas. “I can’t stay for long anyway. Stuff to do.”

Andy scoffs and weaves around him to make brief pleasantries with (and then avoid) Bernice. Victoria comes in with a tray of canapés and stops to greet Robert, her hands smelling of oranges and limes. He lives in a constant state of paranoia that someone will question the way she’s been around him lately, handling him with kid gloves and asking how things are with her wide eyes. It feels like everyone knows, like everyone’s peeling back the layers when they don’t know what’s really underneath. They won’t want to know. He doesn’t want them to know.

“We’re not talking about anything here, alright?” he says to her through gritted teeth before she can even mention his name.

She shakes her head at him – he’s her constant disappointment – and returns to a drink Andy’s poured for her, while compliments about the canapés are tossed around the room for her. Diane is circling for a second bruschetta bite when her mobile rings and she frowns at it before answering.

Robert doesn’t pay much attention to the call then, wandering to the tray of food and teasing his sister about her presentation, but then the look on Diane’s face makes them all stop and the room is sucked under by silence when they realise Diane has tears in her eyes.

“That was the hospital,” she says. She swallows hard, trying to temper the shake in her voice. “Chas and Aaron were in an accident.”

Robert doesn’t hear the rest, his body turns cold. He feels hollow and everything that follows happens as if it’s underwater, foggy and in slow motion. The news staggers around the room, repeated and clarified with questions but the words mean nothing when all he can visualise are the worst, more visceral images. Chas is conscious, Diane says but she starts fretting and her words are choked up so Robert’s left standing there in silence, mouth open and head shouting: _and Aaron? What about Aaron?_

“I need to get down there,” Diane says, picking up her handbag.

Robert is numb, mute, in his own private hell.

“Robert’ll take you,” Victoria says, her gaze darting to him. She nods at him hurriedly, knowingly. “You’ll take Diane, won’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says, ready to tear out of the door. “The car’s right outside.”

*

The journey’s a blur and he can’t remember the conversations they had or where he parked the car. Diane’s too distressed to see his erratic behaviour or question why he insists on coming in with her to visit Chas and Aaron, but his heart races right until the moment they see Chas in her hospital bed, awake and scuffed with bloody marks and bruising. Diane rushes straight over while he stands at the end of the bed, body burnt rigid with panic.

Chas must see it in him, close to the surface and ready to burst, because her face crumbles – the shock and relief erupting from her in waves of emotion. “He’s in HDU,” she says, looking directly at him. “He’s unconscious.” They have that one thing in common – their love for Aaron. A shared grief.

Robert raises a hand to his face, balling it against his head and he bites down on the flesh inside his cheek to stop himself reacting, even if the sting of his eyes might give him away. He loses all pride, the layers shedding in one clean strip. He doesn’t care that Diane looks right at him, seeing him for the first time.  

“Can I see him?”

“Go,” Chas says, nodding and wiping her face with the back of her hand. “They’ve said he can hear everything so you better give him a damn good reason to wake up, you hear me?”

Diane looks between them, decoding their words, but he doesn’t stick around to wait for her to solve their cryptic conversation, he heads straight for the High Dependency Unit. There’s a reception desk outside and a staff nurse asks who he is and who he is there to visit and he winces his way through explaining who he is in relation to Aaron. She smiles sweetly, patiently, at him and he watches her tick the word ‘partner’ on the form after he’s stumbled and muttered. His hand shakes across the page when he signs the form and it feels like another trail of evidence signposting his adultery, but he doesn’t care, because on the second bed he sees Aaron lying flat on his back with an oxygen mask covering his mouth.

The nurse talks him through what the situation is but he’s not sure he breathes until she puts a hand on his arm, guiding him to the bed and tells him that Aaron will be okay, he’ll make a full recovery.

“He might be a wobbly on his feet when he wakes up,” the nurse says. “And his ribs will be sore. He’s got a few cracked ones.”

“But he’s gonna wake up, right?” Robert says, hovering at the side of the bed, eyes tracking all the tubes connected to him like an underground system.

She nods, placing her hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be able to hear you,” she says, smiling with encouragement. “If you find it a bit odd, just pretend you’re leaving him a voicemail – I find that helps.” She indicates to the chair and it screeches across the shining floor when he drags it closer to the bed before the nurse leaves him alone with Aaron.

The rest of the ward bleeps around him, the sterile smell and harsh lighting making him feel a bit queasy. Aaron’s bruised and bandaged but Robert doesn’t notice any major injuries and is thankful for the delicate way his chest rises and falls without the help of machines.

Robert sits forward in the chair, arms by his side and gripping the base of the seat. His knees rub against the starched sheets and he wonders how much Aaron can feel as well as hear.

“It’s me. I’m here,” he says, placing his hand over Aaron’s. He’s warm but lifeless and Robert moves his hand so he can grip hold of it properly, pressing his fingers into the palm. “You scared the life out of me. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

He looks around at the other beds seeing the other patients in worse states than Aaron and he realises how much worse it could have been. He thinks briefly of Aaron’s past with Jackson – not that he knows much more than the bare bones of the horror story, he hasn’t even seen a photo – and he’s flooded with guilt - regret that he hasn’t treated Aaron better. He squeezes Aaron’s hand firmer, hoping to feel his reaction back and knowing he won’t.

“Your mum’s fine. Diane’s with her,” Robert says, blocking out everything he wants to say by avoiding talking about himself. Diane will know all about the affair by now, Chas will have seen to that. “I don’t think she’s too upset about the cake, you know, in case you were worried.” He tries laughing but he’s left with dry silence. “But Chas is fine, totally fine. You know what your lot are like – you’re strong. You’re survivors.”

Words dry up again even though his head is filled with them. Things he needs to say, things he should say, things he wants to say, things that he’ll never say. What can he promise that he’ll keep? What kind of hope can he offer if he’s not brave enough, not honest enough, to say it out loud?

He lifts the dead weight of Aaron’s arm and presses Aaron’s hand against his mouth. “Please wake up,” he says, lacing their fingers together and holding Aaron’s hand with his against his face. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Aaron. I can’t lose you.” His eyes shut for a moment, the muscles in his face clenching and he looks down at the floor, escaping the sight of Aaron because the thought of him gone is too much. “I need you,” he says, so quietly it barely leaves his lips. “I love you.”

He kisses Aaron’s knuckles and places his hand back onto the bed. The sight of Diane, standing out by the nurses’ station looking in, catches his eye. He stiffens and stands up, even though he realises by now she’ll know everything.

“I’ve gotta go,” he tells Aaron, touching his arm. “I’ll come and see you when you’re awake, yeah?”

Diane watches him the entire time – from the walk away from the bed to him standing at the reception and signing out of the ward. Her arms are folded and he isn’t sure if it’s disappointment or pity in her eyes.

“How is he?” she asks.

“Unconscious still. He’s got some broken ribs, cuts and bruises. They’ve said he’ll be okay, so…”

Diane sighs deeply and puts her arm on him. “Oh love, what kind of a mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

He knows she’s holding back on her anger and he’s sure he’ll hear more of it when the shock of the crash has dimmed, but for now they sit in a corridor drinking chalky vending machine coffee.

“Some birthday this has been,” she says, a laugh tinging her voice. They’re waiting for Chas to be discharged to give her a lift home although Robert can’t imagine her leaving Aaron. He doesn’t want to leave either.

“Memorable,” Robert says, drumming his fingers against the cup. He hates sitting still here of all places.

Diane studies him and lays a hand on his leg to try and get him to stop fidgeting. “Sometimes it takes moments like this to make us realise what’s important to us,” she says. “Who’s important.” Robert’s head falls forward and he’s knotted rigid by thoughts even as Diane continues talking. “It doesn’t matter to me who you love, Robert,” she says. “Your dad would say the same if he were here now. But you can’t keep this up. It isn’t fair on anyone.”

“I know,” he says.

**Ross**

 

Across the pub, Aaron’s attention is distracted and he looks from Chrissie snarled face, over to Ross who nudges Finn, places down his pint and rubs his hands together.

“This’ll be good,” he says.

Aaron holds his breath and waits for the pieces of his life to crash down around him like someone’s kicked a Jenga puzzle. Robert’s gaze flashes up, the bravado wasting away, sliding off him and they look at each other. For one final moment it’s just the two of them. Aaron’s fists are balling and he anticipates the cascade of lies.

He waits.

*

“Here,” Robert had said, just a week before, tossing him a Toffee Crisp that had sat a little too warmly in his pocket. “I just thought it might cheer you up.”

Aaron laughed, shaking his head and then soured, ribs immediately throbbing in their bruising. Laughing hurt – he forgot that. He’d only been discharged from the hospital for a few hours and back home for less than that. He hadn’t even made it upstairs for a painkiller-induced nap before Robert had been round, checking on him. It unnerved him and plagued him with a frisson of hope which he knew would prove to be pointless eventually. He touched his chest through the bandage but pushed away Robert’s concern at the sharp flash of pain, indicating the chocolate. “You remembered,” he said.

“I don’t know how you expected me to forget,” he said, grinning.

Aaron craved their private jokes and this particular one had spawned from a post-coital haze, delirious from orgasm. Aaron had been exhausted but no less teasing than usual and had toyed with Robert’s ego, craning his neck across the pillow of their hotel bed and pressed his lips against his ear and murmured.

“You know what I really want, right now?” he’d said, watching an eager lust bloom over Robert’s face.

“What?” He’d panted. He’d been ready for anything, recharged at the merest hint of a second round.

“A Toffee Crisp.”

“A what?”

“A Toffee Crisp. I’ve got a sugar craving and they’re top. Best chocolate bar, end of.” His grin was wide and goofy as he spread himself out across the bed, feeding off Robert’s obvious disappointment. He’d found it hilarious.

Of all the things he wanted in the world, naked and spent, lying beside an equally naked man that he fancied the bones of, he’d craved a bar of chocolate. He hadn’t got one that night, Robert had made sure that he wasn’t losing out to any confectionary – Aaron’s favourite or not. But in this state, still battered from the crash, sex was off the menu and a Toffee Crisp was the nearest substitute.

“Well, thanks,” Aaron said, still slightly baffled by this onslaught of affection since the accident. They’d been on and off for weeks and adjusting to Robert’s pendulum of moods was still disconcerting.

“Diane knows about us,” Robert said, after a brief spell of silence. He had stopped looking at Aaron for that moment, his hands palming over his knees in what looked like nerves.

“Oh,” Aaron said, flicking the chocolate wrapper with his thumb nail. “That explains her acting weird around me then.”

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s been good. I mean – well, she hasn’t told Chrissie so that’s something, I suppose.”

Here they were again, Aaron thought. Just as Robert showed him deeper affection, the real heart of the matter came into play again. Chrissie. He didn’t know why he’d expected more, expected Robert to change. If getting himself unconscious in a car accident hadn’t done it, he didn’t know if anything would. When Chas had let slip Robert had been at his bedside talking to him, he’d had to clamp down on the overjoyed feelings he’d had. But sitting there listening to him talk about Chrissie already was a reality check.

“Diane got me thinking and the accident…and there’s something I want to say.”

Aaron placed the Toffee Crisp on the table and steeled himself, not even listening to Robert’s words. “I’ve been thinking too,” he said. “And I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“What’d you mean?” Robert asked.

“I mean, I’ve had enough. Being in hospital put it all into perspective, right? It’s not worth it, not for an hour here and there or some secretive night away. How long is this gonna go on for, eh? A year. Two years? You won’t leave her, not for me.”

“I will,” Robert said plainly. He looked Aaron in the eyes and turned to face him. “I never said it before because I didn’t think I could.” He paused, deliberating over his next words and wincing slightly. “Didn’t know if I wanted to.”

Aaron bristles. “And what’s changed?”

“Seeing you like that last week,” he said. “If you’d…I’d never have been able to live with myself.”

Aaron lowered his head, dwelling on Robert’s words. It would have been all too easy to give into him, to believe his every word, but now he’d been burnt. He’d learnt the hard way. From the corner of his eye he saw Robert move to take his hand but just as he did, his phone rang. It was Chrissie.

“Just answer it,” Aaron said, snapping at Robert’s dithering.

“Hi. Yeah, I’m just on my way. Two minutes,” he said, avoiding Aaron’s gaze as he spoke and then ending the call. He ran his fingers through his hair, harassed. He pressed his eyes shut. “I’ve gotta go,” he said and grimaced. “Marriage counselling.”

“Yeah, figures,” Aaron said with a scoff.

Robert lean over him and kissed him on the mouth. “I promise you. I mean it. I need a week to sort out some cash, make sure she can’t bleed me dry.”

“Don’t take me for an idiot, Robert.”

“I’m leaving her,” he said. “For you.”

*

Robert wasn’t even sure how she found out exactly in the end. Whether he left too many clues, whether she got suspicious at his trips to the bank, meetings that weren’t explained away, whether she felt his interest in her life slipping. His lies had left a trail of traps and sooner or later he’d be caught in one. Perhaps he’d given her too much credit, after all he’d spent months seeing Aaron behind her back and she hadn’t noticed a thing. No, this time he’d been careless. Lazy. She’d heard a phonecall to Aaron. One where they talked about leaving. One where he’d smugly boasted about money he’d pocketed and places they could travel to. One where he said he wanted to see Aaron in person so they could celebrate. One where he’d told Aaron he loved him.

And then she’d said nothing, fooled him into thinking everything was normal. Played him. They’d gone to the pub, she said she was treating him to lunch. He looked stressed, she’d said. She’d been affectionate, flirtatious. Robert had gone along with it, guilt a second nature to him now. She must have clocked the look between them too, across the bar. Aaron pained and bitter and Robert, tearing apart in his own panic. She didn’t need to see a kiss, she saw everything she needed in that look and sat there pretending she was none the wise.

*

It’s strange how full the pub is that lunchtime, like they knew a storm was brewing. After seeing Robert and Chrissie together, cosy and sickening, Aaron’s ready to flee upstairs, but – and maybe he’s just paranoid – he feels Chrissie looking at him. She calls out to Alicia behind the bar.

“Alicia,” she says. “Open a tab, will you? The next round’s on me everyone!” She stands and takes herself up to the bar in full view of the pub. Aaron’s palms begin to sweat. “I’ve got a little announcement to make!” She has this look about her, a strange over-animation of excitement.  

“Chrissie…?” Robert’s voice has laughter in it, but he’s not smiling. “What are you doing?”

“Shush!” she says, full of girlish laughter masking something much darker. “Don’t ruin the surprise!” She urges him to sit back down but then her voice changes to something vicious. “Or maybe you want to reveal it yourself?”

People are starting to look now, pause their conversations and angle their bodies less subtly to watch it all play out. Ross and Finn are the opposite side of the bar sharing crisps and in full view of the spectacle.

“This’ll be good!” Ross says, gleefully looking between Chrissie and Robert and nudging Finn on his left. He leans on the bar, raising his eyebrows and shoots a quick look to Aaron who’s been backing away slowly, unconsciously. “Aren’t you staying around for kick off?” he teases.

Chrissie snaps her head round. “Maybe you should stay Aaron. I mean, you are involved after all.”

Robert stands. “Chrissie. Don’t.”

“Go on then!” she says, arms open. “Tell them the big news!”

Aaron watches Robert swallow, shaking his head slowly. “I can explain.”

“Everyone’s waiting, mate. Spit it out,” Ross says, pointing his pint in Robert’s direction.  

“You heard the man, Robert. Everyone’s dying to hear it!”

Robert stands in a brittle silence, the bottom of his jaw quivering. All eyes on him.

“I guess I’ll just have to tell them,” Chrissie says. “Robert, my darling husband, is running away. He’s got all planned! He’s got the money sorted, he’s even got tickets booked. And do you want to know what the best thing about it is?” Chrissie waits for more rapturous encouragement from her audience and gets it from Ross, who leans in waiting for the final reveal. “He’s running away with Aaron.” The hurt in Chrissie’s voice doesn’t show in her performance, her eyes widen in the surprise as she directs all attention to him in her theatrics. “They’re in love,” she says in a final mocking stab.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Ross says, spluttering.

Aaron begins backing away, sliding past an open mouthed Alicia.

“No, no, no,” Chrissie says, pointing at Aaron. “You stay. We haven’t had the full story yet.”

“You dirty dog!” Ross laughs at Aaron. “I didn’t know he was one of your lot too!”

“Ross, shut up!” Finn says, shoving him.

“Why should I? I wanna hear the rest of what he’s got to say!”

Robert’s eyes are shut as the world implodes around him. Laughter and disbelief and shock and horror. “Chrissie, please. It’s not what you think. Let’s go home and talk about this.”

“Not what I think?” she says and puts on a sarcastic voice to mimic the conversation she heard. “’ _I’ll show you tonight how much I need you, Aaron. I want you, Aaron. I love you, Aaron!_ ’ – that’s pretty clear to me!”

Aaron tenses behind the bar, his stomach churning away in anticipation of Robert’s betrayal. Ross grabs at his elbow. “I knew you fancied him. I said that, didn’t I? Right from the start.”

“Love at first sight, was it?” Chrissie says, venom in her eyes when she looks at Aaron.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but even he knows how empty it sounds.

“Oh I’m sure you are.” She turns around to face Aaron. “You kill one boyfriend and then try and steal my husband. You must think you’re untouchable.”

Robert charges forward and Aaron flares, surging forward at her, snarled. “Say that again!” Aaron says.

“Aw, look!” she says to her audience.  "Running to his defence. It must be serious!"

Robert grips Chrissie’s wrists and tries to drag her away from the bar and the show she is hosting, but she shoves him away and the conflict between them causing Ross to get out his seat, ready to break up the argument.

“So,” she says, her voice that same shrill volume ensuring everyone in the pub can hear. “We’re all waiting, Robert! This great explanation!”

Aaron notices Alicia sneaking out her phone and sending a text. He nudges her, whispering with his teeth gritted. “What are you doing? Texting the whole village?”

She tuts. “Telling Diane to get back here now!”

“No?” Chrissie says, continuing and turning back on Robert. She faces Aaron. “Then maybe you’ll tell me. When did it start?”

He looks warily across to Robert, swallowing, not knowing what Robert wants him to do. Lie, downplay what they have? Pretend it’s all some big misunderstanding. He’s been mostly silent, offering feeble denials and floundering under the scrutiny of onlookers.

“December. Okay? December,” Robert says, stepping forward.

Ross whistles and then laughs. “Mate!”

“December?” Chrissie says, the realisation that this has been going on longer than she thought changing her posture. She shrinks a little, prickling. “All this time? Before we were married?”

His eyes close, deep breaths shuddering though him. He nods. There’s silence for the first time, clogged with the weight of the revelation and the sense that Chrissie is a time bomb. Drinks go untouched and there’s the sense that everyone wants to vacate the pub but they’re too afraid to move.

“Just out of interest,” Ross says. “Out of you two, which one’s the taker and who’s the giver?” He turns to Robert. “Only your missus looks like she wouldn’t be opposed to a bit of the other if you were that desperate!”

The next minute is a blur, Robert lunges towards Ross and throws a fist at him. He misses and Ross has his arm twisted and bent behind his back. There’s shouting and screaming as the fight spirals onto a nearby table and beer is spilled onto their laps. Aaron, Finn and another customer leap on to separate them, but Robert’s still full of aggression and heavy breaths and he shrugs off any attempt to drag him away. Aaron gets caught in the fray and lands a hit on Ross’s face, incensed by his mocking expressions and just for a moment he feels Robert’s hands protectively on his shoulders and he forgets what’s just occurred, forgets they’re under the spotlight.

Ross wipes at his slightly bloody nose, although it’s Robert who’s been winded by Ross’s fists. “You two are mental,” he says, relenting and letting Finn pull him away. He heads to the toilets to get cleaned up and Aaron’s touches his tender knuckles. The pub has all but cleared now, with everyone using the noise of the fight to slip out.

“You disgust me,” Chrissie says to Robert. Aaron’s never seen anyone’s face like it, her eyes dark and violent, her mouth sharp. She flicks her gaze at Aaron just as they hear Diane’s heeled footsteps hurrying from out the back. She still has her coat on. Chrissie doesn’t give Diane a second glance as her eyes bore into Aaron. “And you,” she says. “I don’t know where you’ve been, but I just hope to god I haven’t caught anything.”

Aaron shakes his head, whatever pity he had for her is buried.

“What on earth is going on here?” Diane shouts.

“Your stepson is a depraved cheat and a liar!”

“I think you better take this elsewhere, Chrissie,” Diane says. “Robert?”

He moves towards her as if to escort her out but she screams at him. “Don’t even think of touching me!” Chrissie flees, pushing her way past them and not looking back, leaving a wreckage behind her.

Aaron has his head down, focused on these unbearable minutes of purgatory. His skin burns all over from the intensity of the event, his head and heart battling for a voice. He wants to run and hide, but he feels Robert near him and longs not to be abandoned. Longs not to be rejected.

“Blimey!” he hears Alicia murmur to Diane and watches Robert stagger to sit down, covering his face. He daren’t look at him if Robert’s only going to shut him out.

“That’s one way to clear out my pub,” Diane says.

No one moves or smiles or laughs. Aaron stands alone, fists curled. His head swings from one comment to the next – things he’s had saved up for months, statements of truth that would only serve to hurt Robert more. But he can’t, because he’d only be doing it to save himself, to lash out. And Robert hasn’t run after her. He hasn’t lied and lied and lied his way out of it. His secrets are out and he hasn’t denied them.

“So everyone knows,” Robert says eventually, glumly propping his head on his hand. It’s self-pity, but for now Aaron lets it pass and feels a dizzying rush of blood to his face when he realises Robert is looking right at him. Their gaze feels unbreakable.

A patched up, cleaned up Ross appears from the toilets. “Where’d everybody go?” he says and orders a drink from Alicia. He props his elbows on the bar and has it back to it, facing out towards Robert and Aaron. “I suppose one thing makes sense now. The business _investment_. You really ploughed a lot of effort in.” He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek and raises his hand to complete the gesture and laughs again.

 

**Adam**

 

Aaron isn’t exactly hiding out in the portacabin, but he sits by the window expecting to see Chrissie or Lawrence pull up in their Landrovers armed with a baseball bat - or worse – and he feels like he can’t stay at home when they want his blood. He knows what they’re capable of and he’s surprised that the scrapyard and anything Dingle owned is still standing. The last he’d heard Robert had gone to stay with Victoria and Andy at Keeper’s Cottage – Aaron’s surprised Chrissie had left him still breathing. It’s only been 24 hours but it feels like a week has passed since she told the whole pub.

Tyres crunch the gravel and Aaron’s head snaps up to see Adam and Jimmy arrive, car sharing. The frown slicing through Adam’s forehead hits Aaron with the realisation that he hasn’t spoken to him since it all came out and immediately he feels the excuses churning away at him.

Aaron braces as Adam’s feet clunk on the metal steps of the cabin. His face changes when he spots Aaron sat at the desk.

“Oh here he is!” Adam says. “My best mate. My business partner.”

“Adam…”

Jimmy blunders in behind looking sheepish and begins taking off his coat.

“You know what? Save it. Some sort of best mate you are. You know, I had to hear it from Ross!”

“I think I’ll er….come back later,” Jimmy says, pulling his coat back on and squeezing out of the door.

“I’m sorry, mate,” Aaron says, standing up and trying to approach him. “I couldn’t risk saying anything, not to anyone.”

“And after everything I went through with Vic and you still said nothing?”

Aaron shook his head, becoming defensive. “And what was I meant to say? ‘Don’t mess Vic around because I’m sleeping with her brother?’”   

“We’re meant to tell each other everything! I wouldn’t’ve said anything.”

Aaron shrugged, stuttering. “I’m sorry, alright?”

“So how long’s it been going on, then?” Adam says, putting his hands in his pockets, his face still glowering. “Before he invested or after? Cos Ross reckons it’s been going on for months.”

He shifted on his feet, barely able to look Adam in the eye. It wasn’t like he hadn’t trusted Adam to keep it a secret, he’d just done everything in his power to put Robert at ease and keep as many people in the dark as he could. Adam would never have been subtle about it and if Robert felt twitchy and paranoid, he would have gone cold on him, backed off.

“Before.” He swallows. He thinks back on Adam’s excitement over the business and then back to Robert shutting down all talk of investments as he undressed. He thinks of Adam’s glee over the money in the bank and Robert’s faith in them. He thinks of Robert sucking him off with his hot, pink mouth and saying he doesn’t care what happens to the ten grand.

Adam scoffs, pacing the floor. “Great! So all this - all I’ve worked for - was some big cover so you two could keep at it.”

“What you complaining for? You’ve got a business haven’t you? Money to your name. It’s more than what you had before Robert came along!”

“That’s not the point and you know it. I thought someone finally saw potential in me, man! I thought we’d earned his respect - that we were actually worth something, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says.

“You two were laughing at me the whole time.”

“We weren’t. I didn’t even want him to invest, but he wouldn’t leave it alone.”

Adam stews in his own frustration, traipsing up and down until he throws himself into Jimmy’s chair. The silence between them doesn’t budge in its own stubbornness. Aaron flicks through ways of apologising in his head or conversations to distract him, to pretend this nightmare is over. He’s a pariah, even to his own best friend.

“I can’t believe I didn’t even notice,” Adam says, his forehead smoother. There’s a brief laugh in his disbelief. “Months?”

“Since before Christmas,” Aaron says softly, keeping his body shrugged in embarrassment.

“Bloody hell,” Adam says.

“I really am sorry, mate. I would’ve told you if I could…” He sighs, face buried in his hands. “I thought if people knew, if there was a risk we’d be found out then I’d lose him.”

Adam looks over, blinking at him and withdrawing back in surprise. “So…what? This is a serious thing? Cos Ross kept making jokes about…well, you know.”

Aaron grimaces. “We’re not talking about that.”

“I wasn’t asking!”

“I dunno…it was just a bit of fun at first.”

“Where did you even….?” Adam hesitates, looking like he can’t comprehend even the idea of them. “No. I don’t wanna….not in here?” He pulls a face.

Keeping a straight face, Aaron nods over to the desk and waits for Adam’s face to react before they both begin laughing. It feels good to laugh again. Cathartic.

“Mate, come on! Robert Sugden!”

“What?” Aaron shrugs. “He’s fit.”

“He’s married!”

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Yeah and you’ve never been with someone who’s married before.”

“Alright, alright,” Adam says.

“And _she_ was your girlfriend’s mother.”

“What, so you’re saying what I did is worse than you and Robert?” he says with exasperated laughter that they’re really comparing scorecards on affairs.

“It’s just different.”

“How?”

“Cos I love him.”

Adam’s eyebrows shoot up and he folds his arms across his chest. “Wow.”

It’s a relief to say it, to be honest with someone who won’t judge him or tell him that Robert’s only going to hurt him and mess him around, but it doesn’t get any easier to confess, especially with Robert in hiding and Chrissie out to get him. Aaron sits behind the desk again, using it as a defence barrier.

“And what does he feel?”

He exhales, resting his head backwards and looking up at the ceiling. “The same. I think. I dunno…it’s complicated.”

“D’you want me to have a word with Vic?”

Aaron winces at the thought of Adam finding out that Victoria already knew and decides it’s something he’s better off not knowing. “No, you’re alright,” he says. “I’m just gonna stay out of everyone’s way until it all dies down a bit.”

“Dies down? Mate, it’s all anyone’s talking about.”

Aaron groans and hides his head behind his forearms on the desk, until Adam jumps up and ruffles hair and he growls at him to get off. He’s glad he has an ally in all this.

“Drinks are on me tonight,” Adam says. “You look like you need it.”

Aaron gives his phone one last look before pushing it into his pocket. He doesn’t want to be the kind of guy checking his phone every minute waiting for Robert to call but he’s in limbo, suspended above Robert’s choices just watching. A familiar tightness smacks his chest as he pictures Robert going back to her, pleading like he did in the pub. Being apart from him, hearing nothing but silence, had shaken his faith in Robert’s words. He’d believed him, he’d believed that Robert had chosen him. Even Chrissie had seen the look in his eye, his inability to let Aaron go.

“Nah, you’re alright. I’m just gonna head home.”

“Come on, we’ll go into town.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

“You’re not going to mope in here all day, are you?”

“No,” he says. “There’s a place on the outskirts of Leeds I said I’d go to. If you’re alright manning the fort?”

*

Victoria swings by the portacabin at lunchtime bringing Adam new sandwiches she’s trialling in the hope she can drag Marlon into the twenty-first century.

“No Aaron?” she says, kissing Adam on the lips and sitting on the desk.

“Avoiding the drama,” Adam says tucking into the food and feeling more than a little smug that he has a chef for a girlfriend.

“I don’t blame him,” Vic says. “Chas’s already threatened to rip Chrissie’s hair out. To her face. She started saying all these things about Aaron. Awful things.”

“Shit.”

“Diane’s had to bar Chrissie – and Lawrence – from the pub and she told Chas to take some time off. And Robert’s at ours wearing Andy’s cast offs because he’s got no clothes and no money.” Victoria presses her hands against her face, sighing.

"How is Rob?" Adam asks, more out of Aaron's sake than his own curiosity.

"Feeling sorry for himself, as usual," she says. "And I know he probably deserves it because of what he's put Chrissie through but I can't help but feel a little bit sorry for him. He is my brother."

"Aaron's the same. Face on him worse than normal."

"I wish I could just bash their heads together. Robert's mainly."

"Maybe he just needs a bit of space, babe. You know what Aaron was like when he came out." Adam puts his arm around her shoulders and gives her back a rub. Robert had a lot to answer for, being the cause of multiple miserable faces in the village for starters.

*

Two hours into the post-lunch slump and Adam's feeling the boredom kick in. Aaron's stuck in traffic and reckons he won't be back for another hour so Adam wastes a good half hour online until the door of the cabin creaks open and he minimises the browser window guiltily. Robert stands in the doorway looking like a scruffy version of the man he knows. He looks like he hasn't slept, his frame lost under Andy's clothes which are simultaneously too large and yet too short in length. Adam can't help but smirk as he lowers a hood, like he thinks he's perfected a disguise.

"I'm guessing you're not here to talk about the business," Adam says, unable to hide the slight bitterness he still feels. "Not that you were ever bothered about that."

"Can we just skip this part? I'm getting it in the neck from everyone at the minute," Robert says, clinging to the dying remains of his dignity.

"He's out on a job."

"Okay." Robert lingers in the doorway and presses on the door handle, about to leave.

"Call it none of my business, but Aaron's my best mate and he's got this crazy idea in his head that he loves you and if you're not going to get over yourself and tell him you feel the same then you better let him down gently."

The sparks of annoyance in Adam seem to rile Robert into something resembling his old self and he pushes his hands into the pockets of the awkwardly fitting jeans. "I didn't come here to get a lecture from his minder. I came to see Aaron."

"Yeah, well, you got me instead. So you can jog on."

Robert goes to scoff, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose but instead he turns and breathes out through his mouth. "Look, can you just tell him I was here?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Robert squeezes his eyes shut and turns away from Adam to leave. "And that it's him I want to be with. Alright?"

He doesn't give Adam any time to respond, he wrenches the door open and leaves, skulking down the gravelled driveway towards the car he's managed to salvage from his scorned wife's clutches.

*

“Don’t even ask! Don’t even ask me how the day was,” Aaron says as he comes through the door even later he was expected. Aaron’s temple bangs with a headache and he’s had too long to think about recent events being stuck in traffic on the motorway. He watches as Adam folds his hands in his lap, brows stitching together. “What? What is it?” he asks – expecting the worst. Expecting to hear Lawrence has been dismantling their customer base or Chrissie has been round with lawyers.

“Robert came round.”

“Oh,” Aaron says, trying to drain the eagerness out of himself. “Right.”

“Don’t try and make out you haven’t been dying to see him,” Adam says, slightly teasing. “He wanted to see you, said to tell you he was here.”

“Right.”

“And…that it’s you he wants to be with.”

“He said that?”

“After the usual Robert Sugden way of being a prize twat. Yeah.”

Aaron smirked, his feet scuffing together when he looked down at them.

“Call him, then. Get on with it,” Adam says. “I’m getting off.” He drinks the last of his Coke and grabs his keys. “See you tomorrow.”

Aaron sits staring at Robert’s name in his contact list for as long as it takes him to compose himself and then berate himself for being such a coward. He wants to be strong, he wants to pretend he doesn’t care, but the fact is – he cares too much. He runs a hand across his face, takes one lungful of breath and presses the call button.

It takes seven rings. He counts.

“Aaron.” His voice is warm and quiet, even over the phone.

“Alright?” Aaron grits his teeth together, body unable to cope with the tension – he can hardy sit still. They skim over the stilted pleasantries and Aaron’s heartbeat becomes a blur under his skin, pulse so fast.

“Did Adam tell you I came to the scrapyard to see you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’ve been lying low.”

“I know the feeling,” Aaron says.

“Sorry. Again.” Robert sighs. “Have they been threatening you?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Aaron says.

“Good, good. Okay.”

The silence swells between them and Aaron stares around the room, listening to Robert breathing and trying to think of things to say without giving away his desperation. It would be easier face to face but the world is watching.

“Look,” Robert says eventually, once they’ve both stumbled over each other missing their turns to talk. “I know things are messy and complicated right now and that’s my doing, but everything I said – I meant everything. I swear.” Aaron realises he’s been holding his breath. “I love you,” Robert says. “And I want us to give it a go. Here, someplace else. Wherever.”

Aaron feels the elation, but he also knows there’s more to it than that – he’s got a vengeful wife and father-in-law with enough money and insanity to ruin them both. And without the power and the confidence, Robert is more vulnerable than ever. It’s not as simple as having a happy ever after together. He knows there are conditions to this assurance.

“But you want us to keep our distance for a while.”

“Yeah. Only a few weeks. Tops,” he says. “I just need to get Chrissie and Lawrence out of our hair, get them to calm down.”

“And then what?” 

“Then we’re free,” Robert says and Aaron can hear him smile. “We can be together.”

“That easy?”

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Robert says and Aaron can hear the strain, the worry in his voice. “She’s still going to want to kill me. You. Both of us.”

“And you’re okay with this? With everyone knowing about us?”

“I’m getting used to it,” Robert says. “It’d be easier if I could see you.”

“You need to sort your own head out. I can’t do it for you.”

“You’re not going to give up on me?”

“As long as you don’t go crawling back to her.” Aaron makes it light-hearted but it’s the same paranoia thrashing away at him. He doesn’t want to believe Robert would, but it’s easier to expect the worst than open himself up to more pain.

“I won’t,” Robert says. “I told you. It’s you I want.”

**Andy**

 

Even though Robert whispers, mouth pressed against Aaron’s forehead, the old, cold walls of the cottage seem to amplify his voice.

“I know we said we wouldn’t, but I’m glad we did.” Robert runs his hand along the length of Aaron’s bare arm and positions it so it’s wrapped tighter around him. They’d agreed to let the dust settle, to let Chrissie calm down, to let Robert figure out who he was now that everyone knew, to let Aaron live without the fear of the Whites coming after him. But when it came to it, it wasn’t a case of giving in, it was the feeling – the taste – of freedom. This was their chance.

“Yeah, me too,” Aaron says, wincing at the bed creak when he scoots closer to Robert and nestles his head under Robert’s chin.

They’d been good at avoiding each other and for an insular village their paths hadn’t crossed, even though their names and the affair was still on everyone’s lips and minds. Robert had tried to get away and out of the village as much as possible, clawing onto clients as his marriage crumbled in the hopes of salvaging some sort of career at the end of all this. They were _his_ clients, he’d reasoned, he’d earned their business, not the Home Farm Estates brand. And Aaron kept his head down, throwing himself into work and rarely daring to drink in the pub unless his mum had given him the all clear first. Even then he didn’t like the attention it brought, the sniggering gossip or the cutting remarks from the likes of Cain. He wasn’t in the mood for any of that. He’d hoped after Chrissie had stopped screaming at him in the street – calling him a disgusting homewrecker – that things might die down, go back to normal. He’d been wrong.

Six weeks had passed since she’d blown the whole thing and in that time Aaron had only seen Robert a handful of times. They’d agreed – it’d be best for everyone. Aaron could barely remember the last time they’d been alone in a room together, the last time Robert had touched him. The memory of it felt like a photograph, colours fading.

That night Aaron had been walking home from Butler’s after watching the football with Adam, when a pair of headlights scanned over him and the car slowed. It was Robert and the pair of them itched with the same dilemma – give in and talk or ignore each other.

“Alright?”

“Yeah, you?” Aaron had said, hands in his pockets and body angled away as if he had every intention to keep walking.

He sighed. “It’s been a long day. Where you off to?”

“Home. Just been at Adam’s.”

“Right.”

The car rumbled away in their silence and Aaron moved out the way of a few stragglers leaving the pub. He nodded in the direction of the doors. “So I’ll see you around…”

“Wait,” Robert called, turning off the ignition and leaving the door open once he’d climbed out. “This is stupid.”

“What is?”

“This. Us. Pretending we’re strangers.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.” Aaron shrugged, barely lifting his head to look at Robert. He knew Robert hadn’t gone back to Chrissie, that he’d done exactly what he’d said – he’d kept away from everyone and tried to sort his head out – but as time went on and the few weeks grew into six, Aaron’s doubts grew. His trust in Robert had been betrayed so many times before and he was used to him taking the easy route, the coward’s way out, that he didn’t know if he could allow himself to believe that things would work out.

“Well I was wrong. It was a stupid idea.” Robert stepped a pace closer and Aaron’s stomach trapezed, making him swallow hard.

“What are you saying?” Aaron asked, too afraid to make any assumptions, too used to rejection. He looked up at Robert, the same guarded vulnerability that he’d fallen for in his eyes – visible even in the darkness of the village.

“I’m saying screw all of them. Screw what they think of me, of us.”

Robert stepped forward and pulled Aaron against him, their mouths crushing together. Somehow Aaron’s hands found the front of Robert’s leather jacket and clung to him, just as fiercely as Robert held onto his face and – he wouldn’t be cliché enough to think it – it was like time stilled. The kiss ended, with Aaron’s heart thumping against his rib cage, mouth tingling and Robert dived straight back for more – this time a loud procession of short kisses, each saying the same: _you’re mine, mine, mine. I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours_. His hands slid around Aaron’s waist and he leaned their foreheads together. 

“You still staying with Andy and Vic?” Aaron asked, almost drowned out by the sound of their breathing.

“Yeah.”

“You got your own room?”

“Yeah.”

“What you waiting for then?”

Robert explained on the way to Keeper’s Cottage that he wasn’t sure how Andy would react to him bringing Aaron home, particularly when his initial feelings about Robert’s affair had been disappointment, frustration and distrust - and that was aside from the smoothing over Robert had had to do when Andy realised Katie had been right all along. His advice to Robert had been to keep his head down and stay well away – from Chrissie and Aaron – and now he’d done the exact opposite. Andy had told him to grow up and stop thinking with his dick.

“If you don’t want me to stay then I’ll just…”

“No,” Robert had said firmly. “I want you to stay.”

Aaron offered to leave before Andy woke to minimise any awkwardness, knowing that Robert hadn’t had a chance to speak to him and Victoria first. Robert already explained that he felt as if he was outstaying his welcome at the cottage. It didn’t feel like the same sort of sneaking around to Aaron anymore – even as they crept up the stairs – because it was temporary. They weren’t hurting anyone anymore.

In the dark of Robert’s borrowed room, voices hushed and bodies close, Robert had reached out to Aaron. “I’ve missed you,” he said, pressing a full, soft kiss to his lips.

The discomfort of the noisy bed made them take it slow, but Aaron’s pulse still marathoned to a dizzying degree. He closed his eyes, holding onto the back of Robert’s head and luxuriated in the sensation of his tongue in flame-flickers across his neck. He knew how to unravel him in just a kiss. There was a dedication to his touch, not a rush, like every part of Aaron’s pleasure was instinctive to him and while Robert’s mouth journeyed, Aaron stripped of the last of his clothes.

There were areas of his body, skin steeped in screaming sensitivity, that Robert had been the first person to pursue and now, reunited, he returned to them with an easy skill. He ran his forefinger down Aaron’s inner thigh and watched him shudder, before attaching his mouth there and letting Aaron squirm under him. Sometimes it had felt like Robert had rewritten the handbook on sex – new rules, new ways, new joys. Robert had changed it, changed him. Robert’s greed, Robert’s lust had become his greed, his lust. His need. And now more than ever, Robert was his to enjoy. Only his.

*

There’s a dull ache in his bladder and he knows he should get up but it’s too tempting to stay where they are, his right leg wrapped up in Robert’s and arm slung lazily around him, stroking the invisible hairs on his skin. He’s heard Robert’s breathing change to a deep rumble when their conversation died, so to rouse him he roughs his stubble against Robert’s chest and kisses the side of his jaw, whispering his name.

“What’s wrong?” he says, pushing his hand through his messy hair.

“Need a leak,” he says and begins unscrambling his body. Robert groans and Aaron feels the cool draft of air his exit from the bed inflicts.

Once he’s pulled on his underwear, he treads down the corridor barefoot and slides into the bathroom. Bladder empty, Aaron steals a blob of toothpaste and a spray of what he knows to be Robert’s deodorant and heads out of the room, only to find that the door opposite opens and Andy appears in the same state of sleepy undress as him.

Both men start.

“Shit!” Andy says, clutching at his chest before the recognition kicks in on his face. In the dim light, Aaron can’t quite read it and he mutters Andy a quick apology before scuttling back into Robert’s room.

Robert murmurs when Aaron sinks back into bed. “You smell good.”

“I used your stuff.”

Robert digs his nose into Aaron’s collar bone and breathes him in and even drifting in and out of his dreams, Robert presses at Aaron with arousal until he’s stopped with Aaron’s hand on his shoulder.

“I just bumped into Andy out there.”

“What’d he say?” Robert asks, withdrawing back.

Aaron shrugged. “I didn’t stick around for the chat.”

*

Aaron’s awake before Robert – who’s sprawled across the bed – and he’s been alert most of the night thinking about the past months, so he dresses without disturbing Robert and decides to leave to let him talk to Andy and Victoria. He knows what Robert will say – that he doesn’t need their permission or acceptance, but considering they’ve had to deal with the fallout of the affair too, the least he owes them is some honesty.

He’s on the stairs, zipping up his hoodie when Andy – fully dressed this time – leans up against the doorframe of the living room.

“I’ve just put some bacon in the pan if you want some,” he says. His posture is guarded even if his words aren’t.

Aaron’s eyes dart upstairs before he answers. “Alright. That’d be great, ta.”

Aaron sits uneasily at the table, scratching at a coaster with his fingernail and just answering Andy’s questions about what he wants for breakfast with his bacon. Tea. Milk. White bread. Red sauce.

“So how long have you two been back on?” he asks, sitting opposite and sliding Aaron’s sarnie and tea across.

Aaron avoids his eye contact and takes a sip of drink even though it’s hot enough to rip the skin from his mouth. “Just er…last night.”

He inspects his own sandwich before taking a bite. Aaron is grateful for the brief silence that occurs before Andy speaks again. “I don’t have a problem with it,” he says. “It’s just a bit weird to get used to. I thought it was a joke at first. You and Rob. Rob and a bloke. I mean, don’t get me wrong – if he’s batting for both teams then I’m glad it’s you he’s with.”

Aaron nods. “I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I hated all the lying, especially doing it to mates.”

“It’s alright,” Andy says, returning to the toaster to put on some extra. “But look, I know what Rob can be like and you’re a nice bloke. You’ve been through a lot of stuff and the last thing you need is him messing you about.”

Despite everything, knowing what happened to Katie, Aaron prickles in Robert’s defence. “I can handle him.”

“He doesn’t exactly have a great track record.”

“I know,” Aaron says, feeling his shoulders hunch over.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Robert says, his voice appearing before he does as he enters the kitchen wrapped in a dressing gown. He swipes Aaron’s tea and takes a gulp. “What is this, the Robert Sugden Complaints Department?”

“Ears burning, were they?” Andy says and even though his voice is tinged with bitterness he shoves a plate of toast at Robert.

“Permanently these days. Turns out I can’t even have breakfast in my own house without my brother attacking me.”

“Attacking you? I was just warning Aaron before he’s the next one added to that list of yours.”

Aaron straightens up in his seat, sucking in a breath and feeling like this kitchen, between the two brothers, is the last place he wants to be. He watches Robert’s head drop in shame.

“Okay, I deserved that.”

The chair scrapes on the floorboards as Aaron rises. “I’m gonna get off,” he says.

“No, I’m sorry,” Andy says. “Sit down. It’s nothing personal.”

Aaron hovers, hands gripping the back of the chair, until Robert slumps in another.

“It’s alright,” - Robert says, jaw still tensed from the spat and cocking his head in Aaron’s direction when he sits down again – “he’s used to dysfunctional family meals. He’s a Dingle.”

“Oh you’re having a go at me now, are you?”

Robert sighed heavily. “That’s not what I meant.”

Victoria chooses this time to appear, when the atmosphere couldn’t be frostier. She yawns her way through the doorway, pulling a hand through her knotted hair and taking a few moments to realise Aaron is in the midst of her brothers.

“Aaron!” she says, the cheeriest anyone has sounded that morning. “What are you doing here?”

Aaron and Andy glance at Robert and he gets up from the table to make himself a coffee, handing back Aaron’s mug that he’s sipped from.

“He spent the night. That okay? Seeing as everyone else seems to have an opinion on my sex life!”

“It’s been a bit difficult not to with your wife shouting it round the village,” Andy says, chipping in. Aaron rubs his palm over his face, wishing he’d snuck out in the middle of the night instead.

“Ignore them,” Victoria says, mouthing at Aaron and sitting beside him. She squeezes his shoulder in a form of solidarity. She turns to Robert. “I’ll make the exception in the circumstances but we all agreed we’d check first before bringing anyone home.” She paused and then looked pointedly at Andy. “After that whole Bernice situation the other month.” Aaron had heard about this second-hand from Adam – apparently Andy and Bernice had a bit of a drunken fumble and Victoria spent three days trying to get rid of her.

“Noted,” Robert says, holding up his hands. “I should’ve asked first.”

“It’s my fault,” Aaron says, finishing the last of his drink. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

“Don’t apologise!” Victoria says with a sudden reversal away from landlady to mother hen. “I’m just glad you two are talking again.”

Aaron grips his lips together in a straight smile and allows himself a brief look up at Robert.

“He’s been a right misery,” Victoria says.

Aaron can’t help the small smile which escapes him – his own private victory that Robert’s mood sunk without him.

“So is this thing official now?” Andy says. “You’re together?”

Robert looks at Aaron, face still like he’s holding his breath, waiting for him to answer.

Aaron leans back in the chair, folding his arms over his chest. Robert handing over the power has given him an unusual sense of confidence and he plays with it, giving Robert a sly smile. “It was just for old time’s sake, right?”

Robert grins at him, straight at him. “Right.”

Andy shakes his head, lifting his mug to take upstairs with him and looks to Victoria and then back to Robert. “Is this ever not going to feel weird?”

**Bob**

 

“I’d feel happier if we were doing this at the pub,” Aaron says as they walk towards Bob’s Cafe. Aaron keeps jerking his head from side to side as if dodging flying bullets. “Or not at all.”

“Are you ashamed of me or sommit?” Robert says, laughter on his lips. He walks ahead of Aaron after brushing past him with a purposeful touch of his shoulder. It’s September and they’re still clinging to the August heat, Aaron in a t-shirt and it suits him more than Robert will vocalise to him. He opens the door for Aaron. “After you.”

“This is weird. You’re being weird,” Aaron says in a half grumble. When they’re in the doorway he lowers his voice and does a quick scan of the café. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Like you’re not paranoid or embarrassed. You’re not looking over your shoulder or pretending you’re not with me.”

Robert approaches the small queue at the counter, turning his head and shrugging. He knows why but it’s been a long process, a strange and alienating adjustment phase and one that’s all too deep and miserable for a throwaway conversation in public when they agreed they would finally spend a weekend together, in public, in the village. They’d spent most of the previous weeks sneaking around like they were still having an affair, or holed up at Keeper’s or in the pub, keeping their appearances in the village fleeting and separate. After the initial meltdowns Chrissie and Lawrence had kept their distance. Robert had lost his job and most of his possessions (ones that Victoria and Andy hadn’t managed to rescue from a fire Chrissie had assembled) and Aaron had had to scrub graffiti from outside the portacabin (Lachlan’s doing) and they’d both had to clean up more acts of sabotage.

He’d had the Dingles glaring at him in the street and he’d hidden from Cain more times than he could count until the one time he’d been caught out and pinned against a wall by him, but now, finally, things were starting to change. Everyone that mattered to him now knew the truth and they hadn’t rejected him, spurned him, been disappointed or disgusted. He was always going to be distrusted and sneered at by the likes of Chas and Cain, but Aaron was their concern. Not him. And Aaron? Aaron found the adjustment just as unnerving as he did. But he smiled more. Those rare, shy smiles that Robert took personal credit for.

“It’s lunch. Nothing to be scared of.”

Aaron cocks his head to one side. “Would you be saying that if Chrissie and Lawrence were in the country?”

Robert rolled his eyes and saw Aaron’s smirk - a celebration of his victory. He loved being smug and right almost as much as Robert did. They shuffled forward in the queue and Robert took out his wallet, thinner and less impressive these days. He held onto the gold cards even though they were worthless pieces of plastic now.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked.

“Getting cash out…”

“I told you I’d get it.”

“I can pay for a sandwich and a coffee.”

“I know you can, but I’m buying.”

Ignoring him, Robert prised a tenner from the wallet. “This isn’t a date you’re taking me on. We’re just having lunch, we’re being normal.”

“If you keep saying normal like that you’ll sound like a right pillock.”

Bob waits, mouth ajar, for them to finish their back-and-forth. His eyes are comically wide. “Not lovers’ tiff already, I hope?” He wheezes with his own joke, undeterred by their passive faces. He withdraws back a little. “Sorry – too soon?”

“Are you serving lunch or just passing judgement?”

Bob raises his hands. “Oh no judgement from me, lads! We’ve had all sorts around here, haven’t we? I mean I even had a wonder myself once. George Best – would I? Could I? Not sure I could though, if it actually came down to it-“

“- errr…ham and cheese, Bob. When you’re ready. And a latte.” Aaron says, interrupting.

“And I’ll have a BLT and an Americano.” Robert pushes his wallet back into his jeans. “He’s paying.”

“Oh, I am now, am I?”

“Eating in?”

“If we have to,” Aaron says, gravitating towards the tables at the door.

“I’ll bring it over.”

Aaron sat at the table, arms crossed but still slightly twitchy with his eyes on the door. Robert could tell, as much as he carried the pretence of not wanting to be there, a smile lurked underneath somewhere.

“It’s Saturday. I thought we were gonna go somewhere,” Aaron says, huffily.

“We are somewhere.”

“Yeah, Bob’s.”

“Well it’s better than having your mum stare at us,” Robert says and leans forward in his chair, elbows on the table. “And…I wanted to prove to you that I was okay with this. Us, you and me. _Proud_ or whatever it is you wanted. Everyone knowing.”

“And are you?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“If Cain walks in and threatens to break my bones and leave me in a ditch again.”

Aaron laughs. “You mess with the Dingles…”

“Yeah, well, I don’t intend to.” Robert looks down at his hands, sheepish and quiet. “I’ve done enough of that already. To you.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“Can we start over? Day one?”

He smiles, little sparks lighting up his eyes. “What, pretend we’ve never met?”

“No. Pretend all this never happened. Pretend I’ve not been an idiot.”

“It’s pretty hard to forget.”

“I’ll be better,” Robert says, looking at him in the eyes and laying his hand flat on the table so that if Aaron wants to, he can take it.

“Oh I know you will,” - Aaron says, unfolding his arms and placing his hand on the table next to Robert’s so their fingers touch – “otherwise Cain really will be after you.”

*

Bob looks over, plating up their lunches and arranging them on a tray, and smiles to himself. How many times had they been in the café together, glancing over and huddled in an intense conversation? He hadn’t realised. How hadn’t he seen it? He sees Aaron laugh and then shake his head, he looks young and bashful. Unusual for a lad like him, so full of grief and tragedy, his mood often sullen and cold. And Robert, smug and charming, sarcastic and unlikeable – sitting there with a genuine smile, light and boyish. How hadn’t he seen? It seems so obvious now that everyone knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for your continued support and love - it means a lot!  
> Thanks as ever for my good friend phantompillow who prompts me into writing and helps with ideas and writer's block and is generally wonderful!


End file.
